


The Witching Hour

by sajere1



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, happy kairi day!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 05:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7832176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sajere1/pseuds/sajere1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things like that – the memories, the flashbacks, the inherit knowledge that this person’s heart is connected to Sora’s – have been happening more and more lately; every once in a while with Yen Sid, once every couple weeks with Lea. Every time she so much as sees a picture of Riku. But they don’t destroy her thought process; they’re just additives in the back of her mind, little pieces of thought to entertain as she goes.</p>
<p>But that? That…that unprecedented switch into a different mind, that complete 180 into Naminé’s memories?</p>
<p>That is new. That is disruptive. And Kairi can’t help but feel that that is very bad news.</p>
<p> [or: naminé doesn’t settle in quite right, and it destroys everything]</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Witching Hour

I. Her name is Naminé.

Her name is Naminé and she wears a white dress that hasn’t been hemmed in a year and she doesn’t quite exist alongside Kairi’s heart – doesn’t quite exist at all – but Kairi can feel the crawl of her at the edges of skin, exhaling when Kairi inhales; she catches herself picking through memories that aren’t hers, and she has no home world, has no home, but she remembers her first weeks of life, Naminé’s first weeks, a white castle and finding only cold cruelty, pain and silence and pain and _silence._ It doesn’t quite feel like Naminé isn’t meant to be there. It’s more like she somehow settled in wrong, like a dislocated shoulder, like a cracked knuckle. Naminé is a rib that floats just too far to one side. Naminé is a kneecap that rotates just too far out of place. Naminé is a piece of her, but a piece that’s been disrupted, put off center, forced into a form it was never meant for.

Her name is Naminé and she waves at Kairi in passing windows, pulls out sketchpads and doodles with Kairi’s hands on the beach after training, trusts Axel-Lea-Axel- _Lea_ implicitly, bites Kairi’s lip when boys look at her, hums lullabies under Kairi’s breath. She has a grip that’s too light and a stuttering gaze and a constant compulsion to wring her hands. She has bitten-down fingernails and impossible-to-read handwriting and she speaks too softly, mumbles more often than not, doesn’t look people in the eyes. She leaves a pile of drawings on Kairi’s desk every morning, crayon and paint and charcoal and pencil, drafted in the hazy half-consciousness of waking, only for Kairi to cast _fira_ and burn them all at the end of each week, watching the images go up in flames.

Naminé is _flawed._ She is shy, she is blunt, she is tactless, and she is imperfect – she’s a human, a complexity, a conundrum.

And Kairi is supposed to be perfect. She is supposed to be pure, supposed to be light; her very being is built, ground-up, from goodness, from positivity, from perfection. And without that. Well.

Without that, who the hell is she?

+x+

II. “What do you _mean,_ you’ve never tried sea salt ice cream?” Lea demands, actually sitting up – an obvious struggle from where moments before he’d been whining about a strained calf – and staring at her, ungelled hair a limp tangled in front of his wild eyes, Keyblade carelessly discarded next to the sofa.

“All these flavors and you choose to be salty,” Kairi deadpans, quirking an eyebrow when her joke fails to elicit the bark of laughter she’s so used to. She’s got one hand tangled in her hair, trying to pull it out of its messy bun without too much effort or movement. “I don’t like ice cream. Anyway, they don’t sell it on the islands.”

Normally they’d be trading barbs about public indecency over the shirts they’ve both discarded over Master Yen Sid’s chair, carelessly snarking about the sweat dripping down both their necks from the heat of the sun and intensity of training, but today is different. Today was the first switch from strength training to speed training, and Kairi doubts her calves have ever ached like this – or, indeed, that they ever will again. It had been almost half an hour before either of them had said anything, and even that was to meekly commiserate over their pains and trade potential solutions for the ungodly heat.

“Don’t like ice cream,” Lea repeats, voice deliberately slow, measured. “You _don’t like ice cream.”_

Kairi shrugs, reaching up to tug where the strap of her sports bra is twisted. “The texture’s weird.”

Lea lets out a gasp as though she’s physically wounded him, clutching a hand to his chest and flopping back onto the couch. He rests there for a moment before rolling over, falling to the floor with a loud _whoomp,_ and pushing up onto his elbows, wincing at the shake of his legs before he starts to stand. “That’s it,” he decides, hobbling over to their shirts, tossing the pink one at Kairi; it smacks her in the face just as he starts to pull the bright red V-neck over his head. “You, me, Twilight Town. Right now. Texture or not, you’re tasting this goddamn ice cream.”

“Language,” Kairi chides in a vague imitation of Yen Sid as she pulls her shirt into her lap. He sticks his tongue out at her. “Can’t we do it later? I’m tired.”

“Ice cream tastes best right after work,” Lea reports knowledgably. “Come on – either we gotta convince Yen Sid to open a portal or we’re gonna have to wear the black coats.”

“Black coats in this heat?” Kairi demands, creaking to a stand with a wince. She can feel the sweat stains of her shirt rubbing against her as she pulls it on and shudders minutely away from them. The things she does for Lea.

“Exactly,” Lea says. He starts off towards the door at a jog but quickly comes to a full halt, grabbing his calf and grimacing, starting again at a slow crawl.

Kairi resists the urge to snort at the pitiful picture he presents. “Haven’t you been fighting for years?”

Lea levels a narrow-eyed glare in her direction. “Different,” he grunts, finally dragging himself to the door. “Wait here.” He hobbles out of the room, the door closing silently behind him.

Kairi sighs and flops back onto the couch where Lea lay only moments ago, shutting her eyes against the heat of her body. As a traditionalist in most ways, Yen Sid is a staunch nonbeliever of air conditioning and blatantly refuses to install so much as a ceiling fan in any of the rooms of the small training compound. If she could, Kairi would just cast Aero and be done with it, but Yen Sid has flatly refused to give her magic lessons every time she’s asked. Instead she tugs futilely on the collar of her shirt, allowing her muscles to go lax into the couch cushions.

It’s another fifteen minutes before Lea hollers “Alright!” and strides back into the room. Kairi blearily cracks an eye open.

Lea grins at her, some newfound spring in his step as he skips over. In one hand he clutches a black coat with what must be ten or twenty silver zippers; in the other, he holds a small bottle of Tylenol that he offers a foot or two from her face. Lazily, she reaches out, grabbing the bottle before letting her hand flop back into position. “This stuff takes half an hour to work,” she snorts, examining the label as he pulls the coat on. “How are you so chipper already?”

“Ice cream.” He shrugs into the sleeves of the coat as Kairi pops a couple pills into her mouth, idly grabbing a nearby water bottle to help swallow them down. She pulls the bottle from her lips and wipes a string of water from her chin just as Lea forces his head through, grinning as he shoves his arms through. “How do I look?” he asks, striking a dramatic pose, fully dressed in the coat.

Kairi looks right at him, a sarcastic quip already on her tongue, but then – 

_he made me feel like i had a heart –_

_silly, just because you have a next life –_

_sora have to find sora sora has roxas oh please oh please oh please –_

_“Make it count,” Axel says, low, as she runs, and Kairi feels her sandal straps dig into her skin, feels the harsh glint of light off the pure white walls, and this is it, Castle Oblivion, where she is born, where she lives, where she will die and her name is Kairi her name is Kairi her name is Nam –_

“Kairi?” Lea asks, concern seeping into his voice.

Kairi’s eyes snap to his face. He’s dropped his pose and is staring at her, eyebrows knit together. She laughs – false, ringing in her own ears. “Guess I’m more tired than I thought,” she says. “Anyway – where’s mine?”

The scrutiny doesn’t quite leave Lea’s eyes, but his stance relaxes. “Don’t need it,” he says. “One of the perks of having a pure heart – corridors of darkness don’t affect you.”

“Aw yeah,” she grins, stretching, offering the bottle of Tylenol in an outstretched arm with a dimpled smirk. “Take this back to its cabinet, slave.”

Lea rolls his eyes as he takes the bottle, crossing briefly out of the room again; she can hear a cabinet opening and settles back again for a short moment, her smile falling in thought.

Things like that – the memories, the flashbacks, the inherit knowledge that _this person’s heart is connected to Sora’s_ – have been happening more and more lately; every once in a while with Yen Sid, once every couple of weeks with Lea. Every time she so much as sees a picture of Riku. But they don’t destroy her thought process; they’re just additives in the back of her mind, little pieces of thought to entertain as she goes.

But that? That… _unprecedented_ switch into a different mind, that complete 180 into Naminé’s memories?

That is new. That is disruptive. And Kairi can’t help but feel that it is very bad news.

“Come on. You didn’t really get to appreciate how cool corridors of darkness are last time you saw them, on account of kidnapping and everything.” Lea grins as he opens the door, distracting her from her shifted focus.

Kairi straightens the collar of her shirt. Her hair is still pulled up, but oh well. “Tactful,” she says, but there’s still a tinge of excitement in her voice – Yen Sid barely lets her near magical displays; just about anything new will be a pleasure at this point.

Lea waggles his eyebrows. “Just follow me, sweetheart,” he says, and steps into the portal.

+x+

“You have to teach me how to do that,” Kairi says immediately after they step onto the brilliant orange streets of Twilight Town.

“Not likely,” Lea says; he waves a hand and the portal seals behind them. “Being a Princess of Heart has its detriments, too, including having no darkness to channel. Which means no Corridors of Darkness for you.”

_“Lea,”_ Kairi whines, petulant, and Lea snickers as he leads her down the street. They’ve materialized at the top of some ramp. Behind them, an old man is bemoaning his garbage issue as they tromp downwards towards Market Street. “There isn’t some corridor of light? Hallway of cheerfulness? Extremely long closet of smiles?”

“Nah, the cool powers are reserved for us brooding types.” They finally come to the cul-de-sac of shops; Lea meanders across the tram tracks, pushing open the door to the only enclosed shop with his shoulder. An overhead bell dings annoyingly sharp as they enter.

The ice cream shop is a cramped, white-tiled room, the space behind the counter dominated by a large freezer; flat, empty tables dot the edges of the floor, the wall decorated by an orange menu. The whole place is so cold that walking in is like whiplash, and Kairi is suddenly extremely thankful for her longer sleeves. The whole shop is abandoned other than the singular worker – a girl with brown hair and an orange uniform – and two boys, ordering their ice cream – one with a blonde mop and one with an overlarge red jersey, all three of their heads bent in so that it’s impossible to see their faces.

“I’m just sayin’,” the blond kid grunts, “there’s nothin’ wrong with mixing it up every once in a while. Experimentation is good for you.”

“Do you ever hear what comes out of your mouth?” jersey guy snorts.

“Guys, you’re blocking the counter!” the girl hisses; her voice is pitched high and familiar, with the distinct note of someone who is on the verge of punching someone. “There are other customers in – oh!” When the girl looks up, her eyes connect with Kairi’s, and Kairi knows that green, the vibrancy of her gaze – 

“Olette?” Kairi asks, blinking away Olette’s singular, distant memories of Sora. She glances over at the other two boys, whose heads have both whipped around to stare at her. “Hayner and Pence, is that you?”

“Kairi!” Pence cheers, throwing his arms out in greeting; behind the counter, Olette’s whole face lights up, her smile just as brilliant as Kairi remembers it. She remembers Olette as pretty, but Kairi’s forgotten the intensity of her gaze. She is suddenly, embarrassingly reminded of the fact that she isn’t wearing any make-up. “It’s been a while! Where have you been?”

Kairi opens her mouth to respond, but before she can Hayner shouts _“You!”_ and crooks his finger at a very panicked Lea.

“Um,” he says, as three hostile sets of eyes land on his figure. A visible line of sweat makes its way down his brow. “Um – “

“It’s okay, guys, he’s friendly now,” Kairi reassures, grabbing Lea’s forearm and smiling at them. Olette’s how body goes lax and she nods, smile returning just like that; Pence and Hayner exchange a dark look before they reluctantly let their guards down.

“Fine,” Hayner snorts, crossing his arms. “I’ll let ya stay this once.”

“It’s good to see you, too, Hayner,” Kairi grins. Hayner’s lips twitch despite himself.

“So what are you two doing in town?” Pence asks, elbowing Hayner out of the way to talk to them. “I thought you and your friends were saving the world.”

“They are!” Kairi reassures; she steps over to their group. Lea trudges slowly after her, hands in his pockets, nose wrinkled. “We’re just training to join them. We just got out, actually – we came here after running to grab some ice cream.”

“Speed training?” Olette hums sympathetically, and Kairi nods. “Hayner had to go through that to make it onto the Blitzball team this year. Building up that ability looks really hard!”

“You’re on the Blitzball team?” Kairi asks, turning to Hayner. 

He puffs out his chest proudly. “Not just on the team,” he insists, grinning widely and thumping his hand against his torso. “I’m our only goalkeeper! Me and Pence clean up on the court!”

“I’m only third string,” Pence admits, and for the first time Kairi reads his jersey; at the center of it is a daunting gray illustration of some huge monster exuding black magic. A wide circle of white font reads _TWILIGHT THORNS: No. 4._

Hayner snorts; the varsity-esque jacket he’s wearing is wrinkled up past his elbows, but the sleeves of it still brush together when he crosses his arms. “You’d be higher if someone else was captain,” he insists, scowling. “Like me. Or – “

Everything stops.

It comes suddenly – like a static shock to Kairi’s soul, a half-second of energy that fizzles in the air, dissipates, and silence. Hayner’s mouth is open like he’s about to say something; Olette and Pence lean forward, half-dazed, and silence, silence.

_What was that? What is that?_

_Memory,_ something whispers in the back of her mind as Hayner’s hands jerk back, the whole room set back into motion at once. _They have missing memories._

“Huh,” Hayner says, staring at his fingers like he isn’t sure how they got there, “for a second I – I thought – “

“Yeah, me too,” Pence agrees, voice half caught in his throat.

“Weird,” Olette says, voice quiet.

Kairi opens her mouth to say she doesn’t know what, but before she can, Lea makes a noise over her shoulder as though he’s choking on something. They all four turn to stare at him. His face has gone slightly ruddy.

Olette catches on first. “Do you two have…somewhere to be?” she asks tentatively, fingernails digging into the counter as though to remind her it’s real.

Kairi frowns, eyes narrowed as she studies Lea’s face. “Not as far as I kn – “

“Yes, actually,” Lea cuts in smoothly. “Our teacher’s only letting us out for a couple minutes.”

“Oh!” Olette’s face falls. “That’s…oh, so you probably need your ice cream then!”

“Hey!” Hayner complains indignantly, recovering almost instantaneously from the odd moment. “We were in line first!”

Pence rolls his eyes and grabs Hayner by the back of his shirt, forcefully dragging him out of the way so Kairi and Lea can step up to the counter; though she’s still casting critical looks in Lea’s direction, the smile has returned to Kairi’s face as she leans forwards onto the counter. “Two sea salt ice cream bars, please,” she says, an apology in her voice.

“Sure,” Olette nods, spinning on her heel to open the freezer. “That’ll be 100 munny.”

Kairi and Lea toss 50 munny each onto the counter as Olette returns, two light blue popsicles in hand. Lea takes his and walks away without a single look back, crossing the room in a few long strides and letting the bell ding above him as he stalks out. Kairi sighs and gives Olette another apologetic look as she reaches for the ice cream.

When her hand wraps around the stick, though, Olette doesn’t let go. “I…” She hesitates. “I know you have places to be right now, but will you be back in town sometime soon? It feels like it’s been a really, really long time.”

Kairi pauses. When she glances over her shoulder, it’s to see Pence and Hayner arguing back and forth under their breath; the shop is so mundane, so normal – so peaceful. She turns back around to find Olette watching her with hopeful eyes, biting her lip. She still feels the electricity of the memory resonating through her body, into her skull, down to her heart.

And in Kairi’s head, Naminé is silent.

“Yeah,” Kairi says, splitting into a smile that Olette immediately returns. “Of course. When do you want to meet?”

+x+

Kairi catches up to Lea in the place Naminé’s memories assure her he’ll be: perched moodily on top of the clock tower with his half-eaten ice cream, legs swinging over the edge. “Lea,” she says, and she means it as a reproach but it comes out more as a squeak. Lea glances over his shoulder, momentarily bewildered, to find her pressing her whole body flat against the clock, clutching tightly to bumps in the tower’s intricate design.

Lea stares at her for a long moment. “Kairi,” he says slowly, “are you…afraid of heights?”

“No!” she insists, but it comes out breathy. “Most heights are fine. I’m afraid of heights that can _kill me.”_

Lea stares for another moment before he throws back his head and bursts out laughing. It shakes through his whole body and reverberates back through the tower, so hard that he has to clutch the edge of his seat to keep from keeling over off of the platform. “Sit down,” he finally insists, waving his ice cream in the general area next to him. Kairi audibly whimpers and clings a little tighter.

Smile still dominating his features, Lea shakes his head, stands, and waves her back towards the maintenance staircase they’d snuck up. A tiny, nearly imperceptible huff of relief escapes her as she edges along the tower, finally breaking into a dead sprint towards the stairs. The trip down to solid ground is marked solely by the metallic clangs of shoes on metal steps and Lea’s occasional muffled laughter when Kairi glances over the edge and goes pale. Finally, about halfway down, Kairi starts to look at the ground below them without shivering and their steps slow.

“So,” she says, voice haughty and critical now she’s out of immediate danger. “What was that about?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lea says, deliberately looking directly ahead and sucking on his popsicle.

“Yes, you do.”

He scowls, steps turning to stomps as he rounds a turn on the stairs. “I’ve had bad experiences with those three,” he says simply, gaze dark.

Kairi makes a vague noise of disbelief in the back of her throat. “Bad experiences?” she repeats, voice tinged with harsh incredulity. “With them? They’re a group of teenagers. They don’t even have real combat training. What could you have possibly – “

“It’s none of your business,” Lea snarls, rounding on her, eyes burning.

She juts out her chin and squares her shoulders. “When you’re making random people uncomfortable because you’re in a bad mood, it’s my business,” she hisses, drawing herself up to her full height.

Lea leers over her, impossibly taller on the step above hers, and she is hit with the immediate sensation that she’s about to get punched in the jaw. When she leans even closer, clenching her fists – _do it, you prick_ – he snorts and spins around, opening a dark corridor to the training grounds.

“Know your place, Kairi,” he says over his shoulder, and her name rolls off wrong, like a curse, like an insult. “And stay out of my shit.”

He leaves the dark corridor open behind him, and she slams her whole ice cream into the trash can at the bottom of the steps.

+x+

Well.

This is a bit of an unfortunate situation.

It’s not exactly the first fight she and Lea have ever had, of course – Lea has that condescending vibe that makes it nearly impossible to _not_ knock him down a peg every once in a while, and Kairi has always had a flair for dramatics. But it’s the first time they’ve been in the middle of a fight and Kairi has truly, honestly needed him, because it’s been four days of the cold shoulder and Olette is expecting her at the ice cream shop in the next half hour.

She paces silently next to her bunk. She’s pulled her hair up into a ponytail – she’s found she likes it that way, likes tightening it when she’s nervous, sporadically allowing the hair to dance between her fingers – and applied her favorite make-up; not exactly a liberal coating, but enough to rocket up her confidence a few notches. Her pink combat boots are laced tight. Her clothes fit snug against her skin, and above them she’s pulled on a pink jacket, fully prepared to utilize a corridor of darkness…just as soon as she gets up the courage to demand Lea’s help. Which, you know. Any day now.

There just _has_ to be some other way to get there. Maybe she could figure out the Keyblade-spaceship system Yen Sid keeps cryptically alluding to – but then, she doesn’t know Twilight Town’s actual location in space, and who knows how long the travel might take her. She could ask Yen Sid to open a portal – but really, what are the chances he’ll actually let her do anything? Just about nil. She could ask Lea to open a corridor for her, which is painfully awkward.

Or. She could try to open a corridor of darkness herself.

_Can’t,_ she reminds herself; she’s pacing the same two steps over and over, room cramped with her bed, dresser, and the latest pile of artwork on her desk – a series of sketches of a blue woman wandering through blackness. _Don’t have any darkness to tap into._

_Well,_ a quiet voice in the back of her mind intervenes, _you_ didn’t _have any darkness._

She comes to a dead stop next to the door. _“Naminé,”_ she breathes, like it’s a prayer, and something inside her wakes up – drowsy, exhausted, but hers, a piece of her nonetheless.

Naminé isn’t pure of heart. Naminé has darkness – has seen it, has _been_ it, is an open source of memories made for Kairi to share. But tapping into Naminé means opening her heart to that darkness. Is this trip really worth that?

She thinks of Twilight Town. She thinks of Pence’s exasperated grimace and Hayner’s proud smirk and Olette, her smile, the warmth of her hand on Kairi’s. She thinks of the gaping hole with their memories once were, the fizzle of thought that just keeps burning out.

She takes a deep breath and holds up her hand.

“Please,” she whispers, silently, imploring not for help but for guidance; she feels Naminé rise up inside her like the tide, feels the magic of it running through her veins. She closes her eyes as she dives in, searching through the depths of her heart until she finds the tiny piece of _not right_ nestled inside her, leafs through it before that piece of her offers – the first dark memory –

Her name is _Naminé –_

_She sits in a white room._

_Her eyes are a blank blue, a reflection of the emptiness in the chamber of her chest; though unbound, she is utterly still except for her eyes, darting sporadically over the furniture in the area. Everything is the same pure bright white – the walls, the couches, her dress, the floor. The only thing keeping her from vomiting is the fear of staining it._

_The only door in the room opens and voices drift into the silent space; she turns her head sharply to stare as the newcomer kicks the door closed behind them, shaking their head beneath their hood. Their whole coat is deep black, a difficult contrast to the room’s vibrant blankness, and when they walk over the heels of their shoes are sharp against the floor. “So you’re the new girl, huh?” the figure asks – high pitched, inherently mocking. She looks up at them, expression blank._

_The figure comes to a stop a foot from her, tossing their head and crossing their arms as they analyze her. “Wow, lucked out with this one,” they say. “What, are you dumb? Gimme your name.”_

_Her fingers curl in on her palms. She thinks of street signs, of buildings levelled by some unknown nuclear fallout, of how it felt to be born, to exist. “Naminé,” she says, because she has nothing else to say._

_“Naminé,” the figure repeats, voice tinged with disbelief. “Wow, it sounds like you actually came up with that stupid name yourself. Congrats.” The figure begins to pace a circle around Naminé’s chair, trailing their hand over her shoulders. “Well, Naminé, though I doubt your unimpressive grasp on basic knowledge has clued you into this, our tests say that you are incredibly gifted magically. Unfortunately, your potential doesn’t really match up to your execution.” The figure comes to a pause – full circle complete, once again in front of Naminé, their hand pseudo-comfortingly on her shoulder._

_“But don’t worry,” they say, faux sweetness dripping from their every word. Naminé yelps and tries to flinch back at a sudden pain in her shoulder, but the figure just digs their palm down deeper, grating harsh into Naminé’s veins; when they withdraw their hand they are clutching a knife in it, tinted with her blood. The figure crouches to her level, pulls off their hood, and grins._

_“I promise we’ll get you to work,” Larxene says sweetly, fingers curling over her weapons._

Kairi wrenches her eyes open.

At some point in reliving the memory, the dark corridor’s portal had taken shape in front of her; her fingers prickle, her hand asleep from where she’s held it up so long. Her jaw is dropped, eyes faraway, and when she whispers “Naminé?” she is answered with nothing but a meek whine from the tiny, shivering part of her soul.

She glances over at her shoulder. She can still feel the pain of Larxene’s knife driving to her bone, slicing into exposed flesh – but no; Kairi’s whole upper body is covered by her jacket. She feels the phantom pain like an amputee feels a missing limb, like an amnesiac feels the memories tucked beneath their brains, like she feels Naminé every day. She feels the blood crusting against her skin, but when she presses her other hand against it, nothing is there.

She shakes herself, focusing her gaze on the portal. She’ll have to figure out the aftermath later. With a determined set and her heart reaching softly out to Naminé’s, she steps into the corridor of darkness.

After all, Olette is expecting her.

+x+

III. She doesn’t manage a single visit to Twilight Town in the two weeks that follow.

It’s not the effects of the first portal – though that does still bother her; she keeps waking up with her hand pressed over her imaginary wound, keeps tugging at dress straps she knows aren’t there – so much as it is the day-to-day grind of a busy schedule. She’s training, after all. Even after she and Lea made up from their argument (which consisted of awkward, mumbled apologies and nothing actually getting fixed), she has other friends that she talks to – Sora and Riku check in once a month or so, and she still has weekly shopping trips with Selphie that she has to keep up with. Anyway, they hadn’t really scheduled another meeting the last time they got together, and she’s got no way to ask them when they can see each other.

It had been a relatively uneventful visit, honestly. They’d hung out. She and Hayner had mock Struggled. Olette tried to make Pence do his homework. It wasn’t the charged competition she’s had so long with Sora and Riku, and it wasn’t the constant snark she’s grown used to with Lea. It was calm. Relaxed. Relaxed and…nice. A good break from the hectic battles that mark her days. And she wants to go back – she just hasn’t had time.

_Maybe this weekend,_ she thinks as she and Lea fall into line together, standing at attention as Master Yen Sid paces before them, critically eyeing them both. I can probably take a break then. _Maybe I can send Olette a spirit letter or something so they know I’m coming._

“Kairi,” Yen Sid snaps suddenly, and she squares her shoulders, prepared for whatever critiques he’s composed for her today. She thinks she’s doing pretty damn well for someone who was essentially a pacifist up until this point, but the Master is incredibly difficult to please in just about every facet of life; her stance isn’t wide enough during drills, the weight of her core isn’t low enough when she straddles Lea during takedowns, she’s too slow, she doesn’t have the right swing, she isn’t _perfect._ Isn’t enough.

Yen Sid’s expression is harsh and set, lined with his age and knowledge and impeccably grumpy disposition. His wizened stature and constant cryptic advice both seem to invoke respect rather than annoyance, somehow; to be fair, though, this tends to be balanced by constantly looking as though he’s smelled a rotten egg. He can be a bit much at times.

“Kairi,” he repeats, voice slow and irritable as always; she stiffens her back even further, preparing for whatever he’s planning to throw at her. “You…are dismissed for the day.”

There is a long moment of silence.

“Um, sir,” she says, “we have four hours left.”

_“Lea_ has four hours left,” Yen Sid corrects, scowl deepening at Lea’s groan. “He is ready for another step in his training. You are not. It is immoral for me to punish you simply for learning at a different pace; thus, I have decided to give you time off until you are prepared.”

Kairi blinks; the Master’s nose wrinkles further in impatience, but Kairi is…honestly perplexed. She has consistently beat Lea in sparring, has constantly learned the hand-to-hand moves and the Keyblade fighting methodologies faster than him; sure, he’s had faster times than her, but that hardly makes him superior to her – and even if he somehow was, wouldn’t _more_ training be the way to fix that? “Sir, I’m afraid I don’t understand,” she admits, and her voice has an edge of defense in it now, despite her efforts to shove it down. “What have I failed at that makes Lea better than me?”

Yen Sid’s expression goes harsh and dark. “Do not question my judgment,” he thunders, towering over her only a step or so away. “Though your… _privileges_ have given you an unwarranted sense of entitlement, I am not here to cater to your jealous whims. When you are ready, I will teach you. Return to your room before I change my mind and give you drills.”

Blood rushes to Kairi’s face until she’s red from embarrassment; she can feel Lea’s sympathetic gaze on the side of her neck, but she keeps her eyes trained to an undone button in the Master’s coat. “Yes, sir,” she says through gritted teeth before whirling around and marching off the training field, fingernails digging into her palms as she tries to resist making a fist.

The moment she gets to her room she kicks her desk with a wordless shout. This doesn’t do much except knock two or three of this week’s art off the top and stub her toe, so rather than let out her frustration any other way she hobbles to her bed, debating collapsing for a brief moment before the restless anger in her feet wins out and she paces the room instead.

She can’t ever remember feeling like this before. She wants to cleave a skull with her Keyblade. She wants to take somebody down and hurt them until they tap out. She wants to dig a hole beneath her covers and never come out, she wants to hide her face every time anyone passes by her again. She wants to be someone else.

She wants to leave the training grounds.

Without thinking, almost, she thrusts out her hand and taps into her anger – that dark part of her heart that was somehow introduced all the way back in The World That Never Was, that part of her that is somehow new, somehow different – and she focuses on her shame, focuses on her embarrassment, focuses on the pain that doesn’t exist in her shoulder that keeps jerking her back in the middle of training.

The dark portal forms before her eyes, and she walks through without a second thought.

+x+

The Twilight Town trio isn’t in the ice cream shop when she checks.

A silver-haired girl apathetically directs her to a back alley where they might be, but when she nervously ducks under the red blanket covering the entrance, it’s to find the place completely abandoned, darts and books both neatly put away. She takes a short trip on the tram, watching out the window for them, but comes away as despondent as before. She finally resigns herself to a failed trip, facing the daunting task of dragging herself up the ramps for one last check, when suddenly – 

“Kairi!”

– she turns to find Olette’s bright olive eyes staring her straight in the face.

“Olette!” she greets, and it’s impossible to keep the relief out of her voice; at the sound of it, Olette breaks into that heart-stopping grin, waving at her with the hand not currently occupied by a stack of books. “Did you just get out of class?” Kairi asks, gesturing to the hardback novels as Olette comes to a stop in front of her.

“Oh – ” Olette laughs, a little awkward. “No, I was just at the library. Pence and Hayner have blitzball practice Thursdays, and I don’t really have anywhere else to go, so…” She shrugs. “What are you doing back in town?”

“I – ” Kairi hesitates. _I wanted to see you_ sounds…too forward, perhaps. Too much. Like an admission. “I, uh…”

Olette cuts her off with the wave of her hand, nodding knowledgably. “I assume you’re not busy, then,” she smiles, and Kairi’s shoulders sag in relief at the obvious out. “Do you want to grab something to eat? I’ll just need to drop these off at my house.”

“Yeah!” Kairi’s bright grin never wavers, and Olette’s responding smile is as sweet as it is soft. The two of them set off away from the stores, Olette leading the way even though they walk immediately next to each other. “So what are you reading?”

Olette grins, pulling her books in front of her so Kairi can clearly see the title of the top one: _Things Left Behind: A Study in Free Verse_ – and, on the spines of the other two, _Glider_ on the thicker volume and _The New Record: LOVELESS’ Alternate Interpretations_ on the thinner one. “We’re doing this play in drama class, called _LOVELESS,_ and it’s based on these poems – and the actual poems are really short, a page at most, but they’re so vague that I wanted to see how experts analyzed it,” she says eagerly, admiring the stiff, dusty works in her grip. “And they were just so interesting that I had to read more into them – it’s really a fascinating play.”

Drama, huh? “I haven’t heard of it,” Kairi admits. “What’s it about?”

“Isn’t that the question,” Olette laughs, and Kairi takes the moment to admire the way her jaw curves when she smiles; Olette doesn’t have dimples or freckles like Kairi does, but the smoothness of her face is almost refreshing somehow. “Supposedly, the story follows three heroes as they journey to gain the gift of the goddess, and they each have different motives and reasons for fighting. The _play_ is about one of the heroes getting captured and falling in love with a girl from an enemy faction, and him dealing with the guilt of not fulfilling his promise to his friends.”

Kairi lets out a low whistle. “And those two are…connected?”

Olette shrugs. “The thing about LOVELESS is that it’s very heavily rooted in its time period. When it was written, that was a pretty common occurrence. Or, I mean, that’s what the books say. It just got put into a fantasy version.”

Kairi shakes her head, squinting at nothing as she tries to get her head around the story. “I don’t get it,” she admits ruefully. “But I’m not acting in it, I guess.”

Olette laughs. “Yeah, it took me a lot of research to understand it.”

“I can see that.” Kairi nods at Olette’s books and she lets out another awkward giggle. “Your drama teacher must really like you if you’re going to all this extra effort.”

Olette makes a face. “Oh, ugh. I hope not.” At Kairi’s burst of laughter, Olette’s expression turns indignant; she has to skip slightly to the side to avoid someone’s garden as color floods her cheeks in embarrassment. “I mean – it’s not – he’s just creepy! He’s got this weird thing for the color red, and he talks like he’s the villain in a Shakespeare play.” She puts out a hand to stop Kairi in front of a two-story yellow house, coming to a halt on the neatly trimmed grass. “If you knew him, you’d agree. He’s just weird.”

“I believe you,” Kairi snorts, putting her hands up in an admission of innocence. She looks over Olette’s shoulder at the house where they’ve stopped; its yard is neatly square, every window thrown wide open against the cool air, the front step decorated with a random assortment of flowers and ferns. “Is this your house?” she asks, trying to keep her open curiosity light.

“Yeah,” Olette admits, shyly glancing at the ground. “I’ll just be a minute, ok? I know the perfect place where we can go to eat.”

Kairi speaks before she can stop herself. “It’s not the clock tower, is it?”

Olette grins at the dread in Kairi’s voice and looks back up; when they lock gazes again, Kairi’s heart skips a beat. “Nah,” she promises. “It’s much better.”

+x+

The dying light of the sun highlights the train tracks. Though Twilight Town always looks like it’s covered in a blanket of orange, this hill is practically bathed in it, the glow of the sun shadowing the blades of grass and dancing patterns across the fence that keeps any occupants safe. “Wow,” Kairi breathes, twisting as she stares, desperately trying to take the whole area in at once.

“Yup,” Olette says, a tinge of pride in her voice; when Kairi looks up at her, it’s to find that half of her body has been highlight orange, too, so that her skin glistens against the sun. Her eyes are riveted to Kairi’s expression; her grip on their food is white-knuckled as she examines Kairi’s face. “Sunset Hill. Worth the train ride for the view, honestly.”

“It’s gorgeous,” Kairi agrees in awe, spinning to take it in one last time before she sits on one of the benches, Olette gracefully dropping down on the grass next to her. “How’d you find this place?”

“Oh, this is pretty big spot for teenagers in the summer,” Olette admits, cracking open the lid of her ice cream. Initially the two of them had bickered over what they actually wanted to eat, but they had finally compromised on some cherry nut blend. “Now that school’s started up again, everyone’s busy, so the place is almost always empty.” She sits back on her elbows, breathing deep and slow as she takes in the hillside. “It’s best like this, anyway.”

“Yeah,” Kairi agrees quietly, tearing her eyes from Olette’s expression to examine the soft orange glow on the ground once more. “It really is.”

They dig into their ice cream in silence; Olette flips onto her stomach, shoving up onto her elbows to keep from getting a mouthful of grass as she eats. Kairi leans her elbows on her knees, breath soft as she enjoys the food and company. She glances over at Olette only to find the other girl already studying her in return; Kairi’s eyes trail across the line where orange light meets Olette’s regular appearance, and the contrast is less stark than she thought it would be, somehow. Like the glow is natural.

She’s beautiful. She’s beautiful, and Kairi wants to keep that forever.

They make eye contact for a long moment, and Kairi wonders what’s going through her mind.

Then the moment breaks and they both look away. “So,” Kairi says, digging her spoon into the frozen ice cream, “that girl behind the ice cream counter was certainly giving you a look. Where do you know each other from?”

Olette groans around a spoonful of ice cream in her mouth, and Kairi grins and knows that coming to this world was the right choice.

+x+

Black smoke –

_Interference, like a bad reception, like a television show gone wrong –_

_“Focus your magic,” Larxene snarls, but she can’t, she can’t, there’s nothing to focus on –_

_“There’s a boy outside the castle named Sora. Focus on him and his memories. Make them the center of your power.”_

_Sora – Sora’s memories –_

_She has black hair –_

_Number XIV, deal with her Riku, she is halting Naminé’s progress, she deserves to live, no one will remember when you die but I will remember you, I remember everything, you are the focal point for my power, Sora, Sora’s memories –_

_Xio –_

Kairi jolts up in bed with her hands up to defend herself.

It takes a long moment for her to realize she isn’t under attack; she drops her hands back to the bed, clenching her fingers in the bedsheets, eyes wild as she stares around her room. Her breathing is heavy and labored and short, quick breaths, on the verge of hyperventilation. Tears are streaming down her face and she blinks more from her lashes, chest constricting with soundless sobs; she closes her eyes and forces herself to take deep, shuddering breaths, hand relaxing slowly against her sheets.

When she finally regains control of herself, she pulls her knees up to her chest, examining her fingernails as though they are new. “Who was that?” she asks aloud, clenching her hands back into fists. Number XIV, black haired, and so much pain and love that it hurt – and Naminé, receding deeper than ever into Kairi’s heart, an open wound on Kairi’s skin.

“She…” No, that isn’t right. “Shi…Xi…” But that’s it. Nothing more comes; even the memory of her hair and her smile have begun to fade out.

Kairi reaches out as though to catch the falling memories, but by the time she wipes her last tears away, she’s forgotten completely.

+x+

IV. _"Hayner,”_ Olette says critically, crossing her arms and letting her mouth twist when Hayner groans and throws an arm over his eyes.

_“Nooo,”_ he whines, and Kairi can’t stifle her giggle at his pathetic appearance draped across the back alley’s couch; Olette gives her a narrow glare and she puts up her hands in innocence, almost smacking Pence in the face. The four of them are all sprawled over various pieces of furniture in the back alley – except for Olette, who is giving them all a Look, arms crossed and lips pouting. Pence and Kairi are lying across a chair in opposite directions, forcefully fighting each other’s feet away from their faces, and Hayner is belly-up on the sofa, seemingly contemplating his own existence.

“Hayner, your grade’s already low,” Olette says hotly, moving her hands to her hips as she refocuses her righteous gaze on him. “If you don’t do your homework, you’ll be failing, and Coach Luca will have to kick you off the team. You can’t play blitzball with all D’s and F’s!”

“It’s Saturday,” Hayner groans, nestling further into the couch cushions beneath Olette’s harsh gaze. “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“It’s a thousand-word paper, Hayner!” Olette trills, on the verge of stomping a foot in frustration. _“And_ it’s APA format, which you don’t understand, _and_ you haven’t done any research. You can’t do the whole thing in one day!”

“Watch me,” Hayner mutters, and Kairi swears she can see smoke coming out of Olette’s ears.

“Is anyone else hungry?” Pence says casually, shoving Kairi’s scarlet-painted toenails almost off the chair to get them off his ear. “’Cause I could really go for ice cream right now. I’m starved.”

“Don’t change the subject!” Olette shouts, rounding on him with an expression so dark Pence visibly winces.

“Actually,” Kairi says thoughtfully, all eyes turning to her and her pinched expression, “I haven’t eaten since…wow, I haven’t eaten since I had Cocoa Puffs this morning.” She shrugs, allowing a sheepish smile onto her face. “I must’ve forgotten to eat lunch.”

“Yeah, me too,” Pence says, almost too eager to get into the new topic. “I had some Lucky Charms, but that’s it. I was too busy doing…” He makes a vague hand gesture that probably means ‘complicated conspiracy stuff.’

They both turn to look at Hayner, who sits up, resting elbows on his knees as he gazes thoughtfully at the wall. “I had…” he says slowly, “a…hash brown, at some point.”

Olette glares at all three of them in turn before she manages a frustrated groan, throwing her hands in the air exasperatedly. “You three are going to die one day,” she grumbles, rubbing her forehead and shaking her head in impressive tandem. “Fine, everybody pass me some munny and I’ll grab us ice cream.”

Kairi wisely decides to not bring up that ice cream maybe isn’t the most nutritious meal and instead swats Pence’s foot as she digs into her pockets. Olette drags herself around the room to collect everyone’s munny, periodically sighing and muttering under her breath about “morons” and “never going to make it living alone” and “like toddlers.” She finally collects it all in her small orange bag and – after giving each of them a withering glance in turn – stalks out of the alley, still grumbling under her breath.

“Kairi, you absolute _goddess,”_ Pence says when she’s out, flopping even further backwards than he already is.

“Aw, shucks,” Kairi says, faux-bashfully waving her hand. “I hardly did a thing.”

“Yeah, I got her out of here,” Hayner intervenes, expression argumentative as always now that the immediate threat of homework has disappeared. “I ate the least.”

Kairi laughs, settling back against the arm of the chair as Pence rolls his eyes. If there’s one benefit to being let out so early by Yen Sid again, it’s this, she thinks, nestling into the fraying fabric of the seat cushion. 

They stay silent for a good five minutes or so before Kairi finally finds the will to break the peace. “Why’s Olette so serious about this essay, anyway?”

“She hates me,” Hayner deadpans. Pence snorts.

“Olette’s really into science,” he corrects, lazily stretching so that his ankles brush Kairi’s hair. “Or, well – not really into science per se, but really into this unit that we’re doing.”

“This unit?” Kairi says, eyebrows raised.

“Oceans,” Hayner says, turning to flop back down onto the couch, stomach-down this time. “Trenches and currents and shit. Olette’s crazy for them. Reminds her of the beach where she’s from.”

“We keep meaning to visit one, but it seems like we never have the munny,” Pence says mournfully.

Kairi glances between the two of them. “Wait,” she says, slow, “Olette wasn’t born around here?”

Before the other two can answer her, Olette is pushing back underneath the blanket back into the alley, four ice cream bars clutched in her hand. “Alright,” she says, matter-of fact, voice distinctly calmer than earlier but eyes still dark with the argument. “Alright, so one for me,” she says, setting one of them down on a napkin, “since I actually went to get it. One for Hayner.” She hands him a stick; he immediately cheers and digs in, making vastly inappropriate slurping noises. “One for Pence – ” and Pence takes his gracefully, shooting Hayner an exasperated look, before Olette turns to Kairi, grinning widely – “and the fourth one for – “

Silence.

_A boy with blonde hair spiked up, the fourth friend, it wasn’t real but their memories are still missing, a name, please –_

“Kairi,” Olette says lamely after a good four or five seconds, and the whole room jolts into motion again, Hayner biting his ice cream with a faraway look now, Pence dead silent next to her –

And when Kairi touches Olette’s hand, it is as cold as a corpse.

+x+

“What’s it like?” Olette asks, weeks later, sitting upright on the top of Sunset Hill.

Kairi glances up from the glob of orange cream ice cream on her spoon – they’ve taken to ordering a different flavor every time, still hurling disagreements back and forth on which one is the best. Of what they’ve tried so far, Kairi’s a staunch supporter of the peanut butter chocolate, but Olette has yet to be deterred from her trademark sea salt that, frankly, makes Kairi sick. “What’s what like?” she asks, blinking cluelessly.

Olette looks at her with serious eyes. Over the weeks they’ve known each other – or months, maybe, now; Kairi’s timekeeping skills have been on a downswing lately – Olette’s harsh green gaze has slowly become less of a shock and more of a comfort, like a blanket that starts out too warm in the summer but rests just right in the winter. “Your job,” she says, cradling her chin in her palm, elbow resting on her knee where she’s cross-legged. “The – magic, and traveling, and training and fighting. What’s it like to be a hero?”

Kairi sets her cup of ice cream down, pulling up from where the fence is digging into her spine to sit straight-backed, forcing her focus on the discussion. 

“It’s…” she begins, voice stilted, and she thinks of the twelfth time this month that Yen Sid released her early and the thrum of memories around her and the slow waking of Naminé from her grave, but she also thinks of the familiar weight of the Keyblade in her hand, of the ability to travel between worlds in the blink of an eye, of having all the stars in the universe lain out for here to pick through, and – again – of Naminé, of the feeling of a person sinking into your bones with you. “Frustrating,” she finally settles on. “Really frustrating. There’s a lot of people not listening to you because they’ve been doing stuff longer, a lot of being left behind. A lot of being left in the dark.”

“But?” Olette prompts.

Kairi smiles, soft, turning her gaze back to the upturn of Olette’s lips and the line of smudged makeup beneath her eyes. “But,” she says, “it’s worth it. More than anything else in the universe, it’s worth it.”

Olette nods. Kairi is half expecting her to push it – to ask for details, to try and nudge her way into a fantastical world that Kairi isn’t allowed to share with her – but instead she lets the matter drop, settling back against the fence and into the silent confidentiality they’ve somehow come to agree on over the visits to the hill.

“Tell me,” Olette says instead, “about where you grew up.”

And Kairi’s face lights up, because they’ve talked about this briefly before – just in passing, _I know you’re not from around here, Kairi – well, neither are you_ – and pulling faces at each other, giggling, shoving until ice cream spills onto the ground – but oh, but oh she misses the islands. “I grew up on an island,” she say, making the shape of it with her hands in front of them as Olette shifts, coming shoulder-to-shoulder just where Kairi’s tank top cuts off. “Well – technically, it was a peninsula, but we never went very far inland. It’s a totally different culture there. Blitzball is still really big, though.” She laughs, hands still spread wide before her in shapes that mean nothing and everything at once. “My friend, Selphie, she used to get so annoyed because the boys were always playing ball instead of hanging out with us. Drove her insane.”

“What’s Selphie like?” Olette encourages, arms resting along Kairi’s side, eyes riveted to Kairi’s face.

Kairi grins. “Oh, Selphie is one of my best friends,” she says. “She’s like – she’s a year younger than me, but the island doesn’t have that many kids on it so our school isn’t divided by age like yours is. We were both stuck in the same corner of the same homeroom class for ten years straight. She’s not – I mean, she’s not Sora or Riku, obviously, but…” Kairi’s mouth is bright orange from the sherbet ice cream they’ve been eating, and the color dominates her as she smiles. _She has your eyes,_ Kairi thinks, _your eyes but different, somehow, but not worse or better. Just different._ “She’s like the little sister I never had.”

Hesitant – tentative – Olette gently rests her hand on Kairi’s forearm and squeezes it, her touch a comfort. “She sounds lovely.”

Kairi glances down at Olette’s tan skin on her paler tone. Then, in one long movement, she pulls her arm up so that their palms lock together and their fingers intertwine. “She is,” she agrees softly, purposely not looking Olette in the eyes, blush rushing up across the bridge of her nose. “You’d, uh…you’d really like her.”

Olette squeezes her hand and Kairi has to bite her lip to keep her giddy expression in check. “I’d love to meet her one day,” she says warmly, and when Kairi looks over it’s to find that Olette’s face is slowly growing redder. Their eyes meet and their stares lock and, after looking at each other for one long moment, the two burst into laughter, squeezing each other’s hands as their whole bodies shake with it.

And the sun sets, and the sun sets, and they are beautiful in its glow.

+x+

When Kairi finally makes it back to her room that night, Yen Sid is sitting at her desk.

He looks almost comically out of place – like he’s been plucked straight out of a classic novel and dropped into a modern teen comedy, the harsh lines of his face contrasting wide with the light pink of Kairi’s walls. “Kairi,” he says, stiffly, standing.

Kairi kicks the door closed behind her, keeping her hands respectfully clasped behind her back. “Did I keep you waiting, Master?”

“You had no way to know I would seek out your presence,” Yen Sid says, which isn’t an answer, but it takes the blame off her so she’ll take it. “Where did you go?”

“Just down to look at the rose bushes, near the forest,” she lies. Revealing to the paragon of goodness and humanity that you’ve been traversing hallways of darkness seems…bad. His eyebrows raise, but he doesn’t call her out on the lie. “I wandered around a bit, too – I’m sorry if I caused you trouble.”

“Hmm.” His lips are pursed as he examines her.

Then he does the strangest thing he could possibly do: he clasps a hand on her shoulder.

“Kairi,” he says, as she comes to terms with the fact that she is being shown affection by _Yen Sid,_ “It has come to my attention that you have been...dissatisfied with our work these last months. I know it hurts you to be surpassed, and I admit, I was not very sympathetic when we first discussed it.” His hand tightens. “I know you have been spending less time at the training ground lately, and I know that it is because you feel unneeded.” He inhales deeply. “I think...it may help you to know that I have not been entirely honest with you.”

Kairi’s heart pounds in her chest. _Answers?_ “It’s alright, Master. I understand.”

“I don’t think you do.” He locks eyes with her, gaze ever critical. “As a Princess of Heart, you have certain skills – the ability to pass through darkness without harm.” Her heart trills nervously at the thought he knows what she’s been up to, but he doesn’t seem to notice the blank shift of her expression. “This extends to the realm of darkness.” He watches her for a long moment in expectation, but whatever he wants to see must not come. He huffs a sigh. “I know you heard the King’s story, just as Riku and I did.”

Realization catches her. Oh. _Oh._ This isn’t about Twilight Town at all. “The realm of darkness,” she says, and she thinks, _I got you flowers, this will protect you, thank you for saving me I will return the favor._ “I can save Master Aqua.” And a bright smile and blue hair come to the back of her mind – unrecognizable, almost, but familiar at the same time.

“Indeed,” Yen Sid says. “You are the _only_ one who can without putting yourself into considerable danger. That means your training is of utmost importance to me. We must be very careful to regulate your pace and your abilities so you do not overwork yourself.” He claps his other hand on her other shoulder, a perfect mirror image on each side. “Do you understand?”

_No. It should mean I get more training. You are holding something back and I don’t know what._

“Yes, sir,” she says.

“Good.” He nods, decisive, and then walks out with a flourish of his cloak with no further comment. No answers. Nothing new.

It is only a few hours later when she realizes that the paintings on her desk have gone missing.

+x+

Here is what Kairi learns from her visits to Twilight Town.

1\. There are two seasons on this world. One, _Crepus,_ is the season of night – when the light source is weaker, and the only variation of the sky above is from what looks to be twilight and night; the cold season, Hayner calls it in a research paper that Pence walks him through with a grating voice. The other season – _Itet_ – occurs when the light comes nearer, and is marked entirely by blazing suns and high noons, fading into the dawn during the late hours. The seasons are divided into sections – a month of _Summer_ and five of _Spring_ during Itet, and a month of _Winter_ and five of _Fall_ during Crepus. When she asks what this light source is, Olette tells her that the current theory is the heart of the world is somehow projecting itself into the atmosphere, but no one knows for sure.

2\. Unlike the islands, where girls attend school and boys earn apprenticeships or are drafted into sports leagues, people of all genders are required to go to school here. Instead of year-round school with breaks in the middle of the week, they have a break during the first month of Itet, commonly called summer vacation. Some years, because of variation in dark energy on the world, Itet lasts all year. These are the worst years.

3\. Orange sherbet is definitely the best flavor of ice cream on all the worlds. Sea salt, on the other hand, is disgusting, no matter how much Olette adores it.

4\. Blitzball on this world is played without water. Like, really. What the shit.

5\. The national flower is _Ipomoea Indica._ It is found only in the world’s tropics and beaches, but various fake versions are sold in just about store in town and decorate every home and building during the mid-Itet festival. They are pink in the center and fade to purple blue on the outside and they are so beautiful that they make Kairi swoon.

6\. The albino girl that takes the afternoon shift at the ice cream shop is named Fuu. There’s a rumor she has a speech impediment, but Kairi is too nervous to ask her directly. Fuu smiles for a bulky tan guy that towers over her, the snarky captain of the blitzball team, and for extremely shitty puns, when Kairi gathers to courage to tell them to her.

7\. The video on Pence’s phone of Hayner trying a monologue from Hamlet is going to be cherished until the end of her days.

8\. On this world, they don’t view the stars as some cosmic void the way the islands teach. Pence says that stars are probably some mixture of chemicals constantly exploding that they don’t understand yet; Hayner says that they’re probably the hearts of worlds projecting onto the atmosphere, the way the heart of Twilight Town does. Olette smiles and talks about constellations.

9\. There are so many constellations on Twilight Town – patterns in the stars, pictures drawn from the imagination of humans – but Olette’s favorite is _Regina,_ The Empress, a mythologized version of the world’s first ruler, set always into the stars by the gods that once made up the official religion, and when Olette tells the story in the dead of night on top of Sunset Hill, Kairi rests her head on Olette’s shoulders and squeezes where their fingers are intertwined.

10\. There was once a boy here. His name starts with R. His name starts with Ro. His name starts with Rox, his name was his name is – something, something, and he knew the girl with black hair that grins from the corner of Naminé’s eye in her room, and he was Naminé’s friend. Rox was her friend.

So who is he?

+x+

“You,” Kairi says, running her thumb over the last of Lea’s bruises and watching as the dark spot fades into smooth skin, “are a _dumbass.”_

Lea laughs, wincing at the feel of it in his throat. “You hit hard,” he says, resting his head against the cold bathroom wall. “Not my fault.”

“Don’t give me that,” Kairi scolds, grabbing Lea’s chin in her hand to properly examine the cuts spanning his neck and face. “I barely glanced you. These aren’t from me, they’re from falling into those thorns, because you are a dumbass.”

Lea shrugs, and the bathroom goes still as she sets his chin free. Her back is starting to ache from bending over where he sits, but it’s nothing compared to the ache he must have settling into him; rolling her shoulders, she rests her open palm against his neck, digging her thumb into the dip where his pulse thrums – _ba bum, ba bum, ba bum_ – and letting her fingers spread across the length of a long, red slice. “Would ice cream help you feel better?” she asks idly, distracting from the sting as she casts a mental Cure and the green flows from her fingertips.

Lea laughs, startled, wincing as his cut closes – she’d been healing much worse wounds in his side only a few minutes ago, but even with that he still hasn’t quite adjusted to the feeling of external magic entering his veins. “I thought you hated ice cream,” he says, clenching his hands against his loose track shorts.

Kairi thinks of Hayner’s glee at a _WINNER_ stick, of Pence dropping his ice cream onto his own forehead by accident – and of Sunset Hill, her visits that have become almost weekly with Olette and a different flavor each time, of peanut butter chocolate on her tongue as Olette practices her lines, of vanilla on Olette’s cheek that Kairi wipes off with her thumb. “It’s an acquired taste,” she admits, drawing back from the now-healed cut on his neck to examine the jagged scar forming on his cheek.

Lea eyes her, quiet, as she sets the length of her index finger against his cheek, letting the magic flow through her and into him. “You’ve changed,” he says, but it doesn’t sound accusatory – just like something that is; a truth of life, an observation of a fact, like someone might call out the time or the change of seasons. She gives the acknowledgment the nod it deserves before pulling back, his face once again clear. “Where’d you even learn cure, anyway?”

“Who says Yen Sid didn’t teach it to me?” she says, standing straight and stretching away the ache in her spine before she steps around him to the sink. The tap water is hot against her skin, and she scrubs at the crusted blood that reluctantly begins to peel away.

“Because we only do magic training after you’ve left,” Lea says, and Kairi’s whole being goes rigid.

“Kairi?” Lea says as the water runs over Kairi’s motionless hands, her face blank and immoveable. Something is stirring inside her – something cold, something angry.

Yen Sid won’t teach her magic. Magic.

_Witch._

“Kairi, hey.” Lea clutches his side as he stands, the healing magic undoubtedly cramping his muscle, and he has to shake her shoulder before she’ll look him in the eye again. “You still with me?”

She stares for a moment, lips barely parted – breath in, breath out, and Naminé breathes with her.

_Witch. A manipulative witch. Witch with power over Sora’s memories. A Nobody does not even have a right to be. You are nothing without your magic. Yen Sid won’t teach her magic. All Nobodies are doomed to fade to the darkness. It is the fate of a Nobody. Yen Sid won’t teach her magic._

It clicks into place. _Naminé_ clicks into place.

“Lea,” Kairi says, turning off the sink. “Do you ever feel Axel?”

Lea blinks, letting his hand drop from her shoulder. “Uh, Kairi,” he says, “Axel and I aren’t separate people.” His voice is slow, like he’s explaining to a child, and Kairi is reminded inexplicably of the way Riku looked at her when they were piecing Sora’s memories together with DiZ _(but Kairi didn’t do that, did she?)._ “Axel is me. Just a different name.”

“Naminé wasn’t me,” Kairi points out before she can stop herself, before she can keep from tumbling further down this rabbit hole – and the voice is hers but it’s like the words are only half her intention, like she’s just the editing process and someone else is doing the writing. 

“That’s different,” Lea says.

“You’re avoiding the question.”

Lea stares for a moment – then sighs, runs a hand through his hair, relents. “I try not to think about it,” he says, finally, and his voice is uncharacteristically muted, resting his full weight on the sink. “I was…different. He was different. We.”

Kairi watches, but Lea doesn’t seem to need any more prompting. “It’s like – you, right? I wouldn’t hurt you, not because we’re friends or anything, but because it’s wrong. I wouldn’t hurt people, because it’s wrong.” He nods, keeping himself going. “Xemnas said Nobodies could think – that we weren’t instinctual – but Axel, who I was then…there was nothing. Some emotion, maybe, but no morals. Everyone and everything was fair game. There was no right or wrong, there was just me and what benefited me. Purely reactive. You know?”

“Yeah,” Kairi says.

When Lea breathes out, it’s shaky. “So, yeah,” he says. “I feel it sometimes. I see Sora and I feel happy, and it takes a second for me to process that it’s real happiness. I’m not – faking who I am, or anything. I can stop myself from going too far now. I know the difference again. I won’t. I can stop myself.” His hands shake. “But sometimes. I’m him. And I can’t.”

“Okay,” Kairi says, and she takes his hand in hers. “Okay. I get it. I know. Okay.”

“Yeah,” Lea says. “Yeah.”

“I know,” Naminé says, and pulls him into a hug. “Yeah. I know.”

And they stand there, for a long, long moment. Holding each other. Feeling.

And Naminé thinks, _Yen Sid won’t teach me magic,_ and makes a decision.

+x+

V. “I want to show you something,” Kairi says, black coat slung over her arm, “but I’m going to need you to trust me.”

Olette stares. “Kairi, I just got out of class,” she says. “I have a lot of homework. If this can wait – “

“It can’t,” Kairi says. “I’m sorry, but…” She hesitates, and thinks of the hard clench of her heart when she sees Yen Sid, _you are not meant to exist, Nobodies are all empty and hollow and useless._ “I’m sorry. It can’t wait.”

All of the Twilight Town kids have always been too observant for their own good, Kairi thinks bitterly, as Olette sets her books down on the couch of the usual spot and fixes her squinted green eyes on Kairi. “Kairi,” she says slowly, “is something…happening? Because if you’re going into battle or something, and you might get hurt or – if you might – if you aren’t telling me – “

“I’m not going into battle,” Kairi says quickly. “Not if I can avoid it. I just…” She sighs and rubs the back of her neck awkwardly. What can she say? _I’m about to confront a potentially-ageless, impossibly powerful wizard, in a pretty aggressive manner? I’m actually two people and I think one of me is being actively murdered? I don’t know if I can exist like this without literally tearing myself apart from the inside?_ “I need to show you something. It’s important to me, and I’m not sure when I’ll have another chance. Please.”

Olette hesitates for a moment before she sighs, shaking her head. “Is the coat for you or me?” she says.

“You.” It’s impossible to keep the relief out of Kairi’s voice. She isn’t sure she’d have the strength to make it through the day without Olette doing this for her. “I don’t need it, but darkness can be dangerous if you aren’t like me.”

“What, aren’t literal magic?” Olette says, and Kairi smiles, only half-faking.

Olette takes her hand. “Hey,” she says, voice soft and cajoling, “Are you okay? Really.”

They stare at each other for a long moment. Kairi’s heart feels like it is vibrating in her chest.

_Rox,_ she thinks. _Rox. Sora with an X. Okay, but can you tell me his name. A name, please._

_Roxas._

“I’m fine,” Kairi reassures, and gives Olette’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “Come on, put on the coat. If it helps, I’m sure you’ll look gorgeous in it.”

“Oh, ha ha,” Olette says, but she’s blushing as she takes the cloak from Kairi’s hand; Kairi grins as Olette struggles to pull it over her head. The coat’s too tall for her – understandable, since it’s actually Lea’s – but it’ll do the trick.

“Okay,” Kairi says, nodding approvingly. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” Olette says, without hesitation, and Kairi’s face softens without her will.

“Then follow me,” she says, and pulls up a corridor of darkness.

+x+

The first thing that hits Kairi is the breeze from the waves, the spray of invisible salt on her skin.

The second thing that hits Kairi is Olette whispering “Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow oh wow oh wow” over and over next to her.

“I know you don’t like to talk about where you grew up,” Kairi says, and Naminé is wringing her hands as she watches, nervous, as Olette pulls the hood down from her head. “But I know it was – you know. A beach. And I…” She gestures to the wide surf, to the dock where she used to con Riku into rowing her boat for her, to the tree where they’d all sit and watch the sunset. “I thought my island might be a good alternative.”

“Oh, _wow,”_ Olette whispers, and she finally turns to look at Kairi and Kairi thinks, _I did good._

“Can I - ?” Olette asks, gesturing to the ocean.

“Oh – yeah, go for it,” Kairi nods, and Olette immediately sets to pulling her coat off, letting it drop haphazard onto the sand; she toes off her sandals as she runs, sprinting until her feet are fully immersed, and then rolling up her pant legs and going further, further –

She laughs out loud, delighted –

It is the first time, Kairi thinks, she has ever seen anyone so deliriously happy.

Kairi spreads the black coat on the sand as a makeshift towel, tugging the thousand zippers to the outer edges before plopping down in the middle. It’s been a while since she’s been to the island, herself. Not the Islands, capital I – Selfie is still blissfully unaware that Kairi doesn’t live on the mainland, and Kairi has full intentions of keeping it that way – but the island, out on the edges, just too far out from the edge of the village to swim.

Olette is still grinning so wide her face must hurt with it, but she’s backed off of the deeper area, instead making a path of wet footprints on the sand, picking up seashells as she goes. She glances over, and when she sees that Kairi is watching, she waves and beams.

She is relaxed, and finally truly, happy. Kairi caused it.

It comes to her quiet.

_I love her._

Then she realizes what that means.

She had always thought – she and Sora – ever since they were kids, she had figured that one day – or, Riku, maybe, she used to think – but now –

_I love her,_ Kairi thinks, and her heart is throbbing in her throat as Olette’s eyes go soft when she smiles, and the warmth of her hand in Kairi’s is so nice, soft against the callouses Kairi has from training, and Olette, who trusts her implicitly, Olette who fights Hayner over a 2 munny bet, Olette who knows eight thousand equations and can name every law of physics by heart but still finds time for theater and her friends and Kairi, Olette who loves constellations, Olette who loves the ocean, Olette who glows orange in the light and is beautiful –

_Oh,_ Kairi thinks, and it’s like everything that’s happened since she and Olette met suddenly falls into place, like fragments finally magnetizing back towards each other, I want to line the pieces up. Oh.

_I love her._

_It doesn’t change anything._

And Naminé is right. Love does not do anything for them. Love did not make Sora stay, back at Castle Oblivion when she was so desperate for anyone. Love could not stop XIV from sacrificing herself, could not stop Roxas from leaving the Organization, could not stop Naminé and Kairi’s impossible mix, their downward spiral of a personality swirl. Love doesn’t change the facts of who you are and what needs to be done.

Love does not save people.

But oh. Just this once. _Just_ this once. She wants it to.

Olette enjoys the water for about half an hour before she finally just strips her shirt off and dives in, and damn the consequences; another half hour before she gestures for Kairi to join and Kairi grins, pulling her over clothes off as she goes and wading in deep; and an hour after that, of splashing and swimming and dicking around, for them to drag themselves back to shore and flop down once more on the black coat, breath heavy with both exercise and laughter.

_I love you,_ Kairi thinks, watching Olette heave out a breath and let her arms flop on the sand – but it’s more peaceful now; not a new place, but a familiar one. Like coming home from a traffic jam and finding the dinner made and your laundry done. Like sunset hill, when the light hits just right and everything goes abruptly red, the same but different. Like Olette.

Maybe it won’t last. Maybe it won’t save her. But Kairi smiles anyway, and the sun starts to set behind them.

+x+

_I’m really sorry about this, Olette, but…_

_What?_

_The beach isn’t the only reason I brought you here._

+x+

His name is Roxas.

+x+

Hayner shoots up when she walks into the old spot and says, “Oh.”

He knows. She can see it, in his eyes, in the shake of his shoulders – and she can see it in the way Pence’s eyes look haunted, familiarly possessed. They know.

“You remembered, too,” Olette says, and it isn’t a question.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Kairi says.

“What are you sorry for?” Hayner says, disbelieving, but Pence hushes him.

“I – ” Kairi swallows. “I made – or, a part of me – made data versions of you. New memories. And they’ve been leaking into this world, into your hearts, because they were taken from your hearts. I’ve been…remembering. And I had to make it right.”

Hayner scrutinizes her for a second. “Roxas,” he says.

She nods. “But – he wasn’t real,” Hayner says, tapping his fingers on his knee. “Me and him – when we – ” His breath catches. “I mean – “

“I’m sorry,” Kairi says, because she _knows,_ she felt Sora’s heart break when Naminé spoke the truth, and it’s like she can feel Hayner’s heart break now, _you mean we weren’t friends? You mean we weren’t…more?_ But she is so, so tired of everything being _hidden_ from everyone. They deserve to know the truth.

“That doesn’t explain why you’re sorry,” Pence says.

Naminé bites her lip. “I know a little bit of what it’s like to have a piece of you cut off and then returned wrong. Or – a lot of what it’s like, actually. It’s kind of complicated. But – ” She stares down at her feet. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Not if I could help it. And I…I think of us as friends, and I just – “

“Hey, hey,” Hayner says, sounding distinctly alarmed, and Kairi is crying embarrassing tears down her nose but she can’t stop so she doesn’t bother to try, just keeps on trucking, “I love you all a lot,” she says, “and I would never wish any pain on any of you, and now you have to – “

“Kairi,” Pence says, “Don’t be sorry.”

“Yeah,” Hayner says, still looking worried. “I mean, at least we aren’t missing anything anymore.”

“I’d rather have our memories, even if they’re wrong,” Olette says, soft. “It’s better than the alternative, right?”

Kairi thinks – of the year without Sora, the year without _Naminé,_ of dreaming of reaching out and always just brushing fingertips with what she needed, of the sudden, horrible awareness of emptiness within her, of hollowness, of being _without._

Yen Sid won’t teach her magic. A Nobody does not have the right to exist.

_Better than the alternative._

“Yeah,” Kairi says. “It is.”

And then she takes a deep breath.

“I’m sorry about this, too.”

She shoves Olette away just in time for the corridor of darkness to whisk her away, leaving the three of them stranded.

+x+

Sora and Riku are coming to visit sometime this evening, so Kairi has no idea how much time she has. Not a lot.

First step: she pulls her hair out of its ponytail. She takes a comb. She undoes her part.

She pulls all of her hair to rest on her right shoulder.

It feels right – the color feels like Kairi, but the style feels like Naminé. A good mixture. Highlights would be nice, too, maybe; not strong, but just enough blonde in there to settle a little more into her own skin. Enough to feel okay. But this will do for now.

Step two is clothes. No fucking white dresses – she’d only worn them as Naminé because she’d had no other choice, no option but that or the black coats that made her shiver and think of electric knives, and Kairi always felt ridiculous trying to fight in anything that doesn’t reach her knees. No more full-white. No more pure.

Instead, she grabs the most vibrant clothes in her dresser – a violet hoodie, leggings with complicated square patterns in neon oranges and reds, and a pair of black exercise shorts for good measure. It doesn’t exactly work, fashion-wise, but it doesn’t impede her movements and it’s definitely colorful, which are the two most important things. She laces up a pair of red tennis shoes Lea bought her as a joke once and touches her necklace to make sure it’s still there – and then she pulls it under her hoodie, safe, out of sight out of danger.

She gives herself a once over in the mirror. Alright. Okay.

Step three.

She takes a deep breath, steels herself, and walks out of the room.

Yen Sid is reading something in his office – probably some magnificent book of prophecies that cryptically foreshadows this moment or whatever – and Kairi kind of just wants to kick the door in and yell at him for a few minutes, but Naminé goes ahead and just knocks instead. “Come in,” Yen Sid says, and doesn’t look up when the door opens.

“Master,” Kairi says, and her voice is still wrong but less, somehow – and Yen Sid looks up, sharp. “We need to talk.”

“Kairi,” Yen Sid says, slow, setting the ancient tome in his hands down and closing it with a wave of his hand. “You have changed your hair.”

“Among other things,” Kairi says, allowing a gritted smile. _This doesn’t have to go badly. There’s no need for this to end in a fight._ “I wanted to talk to you about training, sir. It’s come to my attention that I haven’t been treated fairly, and I thought, maybe, you could answer my concerns.”

It is somewhat impressive that Yen Sid looks intimidating even while wearing a silly star cone hat. “We have already discussed this,” he says, guarded. “My decisions have all been measured and final. That you would question them – “

“– is better than mindlessly following someone, I’m sure,” Naminé counters, and Yen Sid scowls. “Master, I have nothing but respect for you – “

“Obviously, you don’t.”

“ – but I’m afraid that Naminé’s status – _my_ status – as a Nobody is causing you to view me differently.”

Yen Sid’s knuckles go white as he holds onto the desk. “Your status,” he says, slowly, like the words are a curse.

“Yes, sir,” Kairi says. “Mine.”

They sit there in silence for a long, long moment.

Finally, Yen Sid sighs. “I had hoped,” he says, standing slowly from his chair, “that it would not come to this.”

“Come to what?” Kairi asks, and there’s a tingle in her hand where she’s ready to summon her Keyblade – _this doesn’t have to end in a fight, this doesn’t have to end in a fight, this doesn’t have to end in a fight._

Then Yen Sid lifts his hand and she flies backwards through the door, thrown all the way down the hallway until she hits the far wall.

She falls to the ground like a ragdoll and groans; her head throbs she smacked it against a picture frame and there’s a long cut down her calf where she went flying against the sharp edges of a door. The lock to Yen Sid’s office clicks behind him as he slowly walks towards her. “Most of the time, Nobodies cease to exist when they join with their original beings,” he says, speech measured to the rhythm of his footsteps. “You and Sora were…special cases. I had hoped that by combining, your Nobodies would fade peacefully and everything would be as it should.”

He stops a foot in front of her. “But it is not so.” He taps his heart. “Naminé still exists, somewhere.”

And Kairi thinks, _this has to end in a fight._ She thinks, _I am never going to be left alone. He is never going to leave me alone._

Kairi stumbles to a stand, leaning her weight heavy against the wall as her back aches where it hit. Yen Sid gives her an unimpressed look. “I tried to avoid awakening her,” he says, and his voice is soft, sympathetic. “Avoid the magic she is so known for. Keep you from Sora, so your Nobodies wouldn’t be able to react to each other. But it seems none of that helped.”

“Why do you think she has to die?” Kairi demands, the spinning in her head finally settling.

“It is the fate of a Nobody,” Yen Sid says, cold, and hatred rips through Kairi, hard and fast.

“So,” Yen Sid says, summoning a Keyblade to his side, “it appears there will be no peaceful solution. For Naminé to die, it looks as though she will have to be killed.”

He lifts his Keyblade up to point at Kairi’s heart. “I’m sorry,” he says, and he truly sounds so – voice gravelly and low, his eyes condescendingly sympathetic. “It’s the way it has to be.”

He pulls back his Keyblade – he powers his magic – 

He’s going to split her apart, he’s going to open her heart and recreate Naminé and then he’s going to kill her, he’s going to leave her hollow and cold and empty-eyed –

“Leave me alone!” Naminé shouts –

Something _bursts_ –

It is Yen Sid who flies back this time; the walls crack; there is a sharp ding, like a bell, ringing in her ears and from her spot, resonating through the building –

A door flies open – “What the hell is going on?” Lea demands, Keyblade at the ready as he dives in –

Leave me alone leave me alone leave me alone leave me _alone_ –

Lea drops his Keyblade and takes in the scene before him – Kairi, but not Kairi, covered in a protective dome of magic, and Yen Sid, a new scar along his hand, Keyblade dropped from pain, shoving himself up from where he lays. “Destroy the barrier, Lea!” Yen Sid shouts. “She’s been compromised.”

“What – ” Lea starts, and then looks at Kairi and his eyes widen.

“I deserve to exist,” she whispers, and she’s back on the floor, again, down on her knees, hands covering her ears, leave her alone it’s her fault she doesn’t deserve to exist leave her _alone,_ “I deserve to exist, I deserve to exist – “

“Naminé,” Lea breathes.

“Take her out, Lea!” Yen Sid snarls.

Lea turns, dropping his arms to stare at him. “Master,” he says, “she isn’t a danger, she’s just afraid, I’ve seen it before – “

“Do as I say,” Yen Sid thunders.

There is a telltale noise of a gummy ship landing, not so far away. Riku and Sora – they must have already heard the shouting, the explosion – they must know something’s going on –

Sora. Sora’s memories.

“I can fix this,” Kairi realizes in a whisper, out of darkness, out of nothing.

Lea turns back to her. “Naminé,” he says, and his voice is raw. “You’re alive. I need an explanation.”

She stares back at him, eyes wide. “I can fix everything,” she says, “please, Lea, please – “

“Lea, _fight her!”_

Lea’s eyes spark. “Tell me, Naminé!”

Naminé hiccups where she sits. “He wants to kill me,” she says, miserably. “He wants me to – to fade – I don’t want to disappear, I _won’t_ – “

“Lea, you know the fate of Nobodies,” Yen Sid says, and his voice is authoritative, orderly. “It is what must be done!”

Lea glances between them – one at a time – betray a friend or betray his work, always, it is always a choice for Axel, he can never have them both – 

“Please,” Naminé says. “Please, Lea. If I don’t stop this…”

“…no one will,” Lea finishes, and they stare at each other for one long moment before Lea nods and raises his Keyblade.

“Well,” he says, turning to the Master, “it’s a good thing there’s no one here who would want to get in your way.”

“Fool!” Yen Sid thunders, picking his own Keyblade back up in his weak hand. “If you don’t have it in your heart to obey, then you will have to share Naminé’s fate.”

Kairi stands, legs shaky, and undoes the bubble around her. Lea tightens his grip on his Keyblade as the Master prepares his magic.

“Just make it count,” Lea says, and Kairi sprints out of the room.

The training building is practically a labyrinth for anyone who doesn’t know it, but Kairi can walk it like the back of her hand – left, right, left again, and then straight, on through –

“Kairi!” Riku yells, and grabs her arm as she almost tumbles into him rounding the final corner. “Hey, hey – what’s the rush?”

“Riku,” she says, and she hugs him, and her voice is trembling, “I’m so, so sorry, you’re my best friend, I love you so much – “

“Kairi?” he pulls away and looks at her in disbelief – and then his face goes blank, fingers go tight. _“Naminé?”_

She kisses him on the cheek, gentle. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, and then –

“Take care of him,” she says, and puts her fingers on his forehead and he drops, _Sleepra_ at its finest.

And she runs. She leaves Riku behind, and she runs.

Sora is outside of the building, holding his Keyblade.

“I heard fighting,” he says in lieu of greeting. “Did you meet Riku on the way? He was ahead of me.”

“Sora,” she says, and he doesn’t remember her but he does and she loves them so much and it _doesn’t change anything,_ “Do you trust me?”

“What? Yeah, of course.” He stares. “Kairi, what – ?”

“I’m sorry,” she says, and puts a hand to his forehead – just like Riku –

Naminé, power over Sora’s memories, and Kairi, double the power, double the strength –

_Even if the chains break, the memories will always be there!_

\- and she takes the web of his memories and breaks them.

She follows through – to Riku’s memories, to Yen Sid’s, to Selphie’s and Yuffie’s and Lea’s and on and on – and she wipes it away, takes Kairi and scrubs her clean, leaves a different girl where they remembered Kairi, a girl whose name is never used anymore, a girl whose body doesn’t exist, a girl they will never find –

_I used to have a friend named Naminé,_ a ghost of Sora says, somewhere, _but she moved away when I was little, and I don’t know what happened to her. I’ll find her one day!_

She breathes in. She breathes out.

She removes her hand and Sora falls, hit hard by the sudden change. Across the world, Lea and Yen Sid do the same.

No one knows who she is. No one remembers her. The world is monochrome, every sound muted, and her heartbeat is all she can hear – _ba bum, ba bum, ba bum._

_I don’t exist in your heart._

_Ba bum, ba bum._

_I don’t exist in anyone’s heart._

_Ba-bum._

_Her legs tremble. Her breath goes cold._

"This time, I'll protect you," she whispers, and she pulls her necklace over her head and gently pulls it down until it rests, gentle, on Sora's chest, _this will keep you safe_. "I'll come back for you. I promise >

She gives him one last look, and then she opens a corridor of darkness.

+x+

There is one set of memories she left herself in.

She is so tired that she cannot drag herself more than a foot past where the corridor ended; she falls, knees first, onto the couch where Hayner usually sits, letting the darkness shut behind her. It is late in the evening. It is possible no one will find her for a full day.

The curtain that leads to the usual spot rustles, and Pence shouts _“Holy shit, guys, come quick!”_

She breathes in, breathes out. Everything is distant, quiet – unreal, almost, like she exists outside of her body, outside of this moment. Like she doesn’t exist.

Then Olette touches her neck, and she’s more alive than ever before.

“Ungh,” she says eloquently as she sits up, wincing at the stress it puts on her muscles; Hayner hushes her as Pence sets to work cleaning the cut on her leg with a first aid kit he must’ve borrowed from one of the shops. She watches with hazy eyes and smiles, soft, when Olette squeezes her shoulder.

She exists somewhere, still. She is not dead. She deserves to exist.

“What happened?” Hayner says, and he doesn’t often let his voice catch on anything but anger so to hear him worried is almost endearing. “Do we need to fight someone for you? Are you okay?”

“Hayner, please!” Olette hisses. “Kairi, please, can you tell us what happened?”

“Don’t call me Kairi,” she slurs out, because no, that name is wrong. She isn’t Kairi – isn’t Naminé – she is both, neither, a mixture, a compound. She is not one or the other. She is both combined.

She looks at Olette and smiles, dreamily. “Call me Kye,” she says, and it feels right. “Don’t worry. Everything is going to be okay.”

+x+

VI. She stays the night on Olette’s couch, and wakes up to some actually-matching clothes laid out on the floor next to her. A post-it note on top of them reads _Breakfast downstairs!_ Kye pulls the outfit on slow, bones still aching, but she doesn’t bother to cure herself. This once, she thinks, the pain is okay.

Olette doesn’t hear Kye come in, focused entirely on the French toast she is buttering at the counter; it gives Kye the perfect opportunity to sneak up behind her and wrap an arm over her shoulder, pulling her into a one-armed hug. “Thanks for the clothes,” Kye says over Olette’s squeak of surprise, tugging on the hem of her purple V-neck as she wanders over to the coffee-maker to grab a mug.

“No problem,” Olette says, and her smile still comes slow – a pang of guilt settles in Kye’s stomach, at the image of Olette’s face when she saw Kye’s wounds – but it comes, now, which is what’s important. “They used to be my sister’s, before she went to college. They look better on you.”

“Most things do,” Kye grins, and Olette’s eyes crinkle at the edges as she finally drags two plates over to the dining room table in the next room. Kye quietly finishes getting her coffee and sips it as she walks, dragging herself back to the table.

They eat in relative silence for about thirty seconds before Olette apparently gives up, pushing her food to the center of the table and just watching Kye eat. “Kairi – Kye,” she says. “I know…you probably can’t tell me what happened last night. But – “

“Olette,” Kye says softly, and reaches out to take her hand, but Olette doesn’t stop talking, takes the hand in hers and interlocks their fingers and plows on, “But I need to know – I need to _know_ what you’re doing next. I can’t – I can’t take this, this you could be dead and I’m just sitting here like an asshole. You’ve, you’ve got about twenty bruises and probably a concussion and I know it could be worse but I, I just, I can’t. I can’t.”

Kye finishes her bite of French toast and then looks Olette in the eye and says, “You won’t.”

“You can’t _promise_ that – “

“I’m promising that right now,” Kye says firmly. “Look up at me. Hey.” She waits until they’ve locked eyes, until Kye can see the fear in the dark green of them start to melt away. “Last night, I confronted my trainer about the fact that he was hiding things from me. It went badly. So I…did some things. I can’t tell you that, because it might put you in danger, but he doesn’t remember me anymore. _Sora_ doesn’t remember me anymore.”

Olette stares, and Kye squeezes her hand where their fingers connect. “So I’m not going back there. I’m tired of things being hidden from me, and I’m tired of hiding things. No more lies. No more secrets. Whatever you want to know, whatever you want me to say – I’ll do it. From here on out, I’m honest. Okay?”

They stare each other down for another long moment.

Finally, Olette nods. “Okay,” she says, and it’s more breath than it is word, like the sound of the word itself is a rush of relief. “Okay.”

Kye nods, and moves to pull her hand back, but Olette keeps it clutched tight. “So, then, if you can tell me,” she says, and fear tinges her voice, “what are you going to do now?”

Kye hesitates. _No more secrets._

“I still need someone to train me,” she says, slow, and flexes her left hand where magic crackles at her skin. “The war that I was training for – it’s still happening. I can’t abandon that duty. But I’m going to do it on my own terms. I’m going to find someone who can teach me what I need to know without breaking me apart.”

Kye looks up at Olette and smiles. “I’m going to find Master Aqua,” she says, confident. “And then, I’m going to come home.”

**Author's Note:**

> happy kairi day!!
> 
> this was a two-year-ish project that, happily, ended up more or less done in august, so i just held off on posting it until today in honor of our Lord And Savior, Her Highness, Kairi. this story was originally conceptualized as a sort of prologue of circumstances in a hypothetical kairi game, but the scope of that full project ended up much larger than i felt i could deal with without really damn long breaks between chapters, so i ended up just taking the original part and making it a self-contained story. if i get like, Outrageous Demand, maybe ill go back to the full project, but i doubt thats going to happen, so for now ill just keep the plans lying around to mess with every once in a while.
> 
> while i know this story has its flaws, ive put a lot of time, work, and emotion into writing and editing it, so i would really appreciate feedback if you dont mind! once again, happy kairi day, and thank you for reading!


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